


The Canadian Mistake

by blackrabbit42



Category: Supernatural, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Episode: s06e15 The French Mistake, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26249935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackrabbit42/pseuds/blackrabbit42
Summary: Ever wonder what happened to Jared and Jensen during the events of The French Mistake?
Comments: 38
Kudos: 80





	The Canadian Mistake

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Ошибка по-канадски / The Canadian Mistake](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28949025) by [WTF_J2_SPN_Final_Cut_2021 (WTF_J2_SPN_2019)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_J2_SPN_2019/pseuds/WTF_J2_SPN_Final_Cut_2021)



Jared lands on the hard packed dirt with a teeth-rattling thud. “Ow! I mean like, really, OW! What the fuck?” There’s no fall-mat, only shards of broken glass. Real glass.

Jared brings a shaky hand up to his cheek and winces as he touches a wet, open sting just above his eyebrow. His fingers come away with a dark smear of blood and he is not totally surprised.

There’s a tiny part of him that was expecting this; months ago his astrologer had warned him that he was going to experience a “sudden reversal of positions” and the next day, the script from The French Mistake was on the table in his trailer. He’d been thinking about it a lot since then, imagining what it would be like; these imaginings sometimes resembled fantasy, and sometimes resembled mini-panic attacks. Either way, it was something his brain already had a construct for.

Jensen’s muttering about make-up and wardrobe, but Jared’s already seen. The cameras are gone. The lights are gone. The high ceiling of the studio lot has been replaced by a raining night sky. “It’s real”, he says quietly, but Jensen doesn’t hear.

Suddenly, an icy tendril of fear snakes down his spine and makes his balls curl up into his body. If the glass is real, and the sky is real, then there’s a very real chance he has a loaded 9mm jammed down the back of his pants. He scrambles to his knees and feels back where the prop normally lives. He can tell right away by the weight of it that he’s right. His hands tremble as he drops the magazine out of the gun and tries frantically to remember what to do next. There’s a round in the chamber, he thinks. He de-cocks it, pulls the slide to the rear and ejects the round.

Jensen stands and brushes grass and smears of mud off his pants. “Jensen!” Jared shouts. “Dean’s gun! It’s loaded!”

Jensen looks at him like he’s got lobsters crawling out of his ears. “What?” he says, not bothering to disguise the irritation in his voice. To say they haven’t been getting along doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Jared doesn’t care. Yeah, Jensen may have been acting like a douche for the past few months, but he still doesn’t want to see him blow his balls off. “Look around Jensen. It happened. You’re Dean. It’s real. The script. The lot—it’s gone. We’re here. In Supernatural.” Jared is flailing his arms around, gesturing to _everything_.

It’s quiet save for the sound of rain, and Jensen finally looks around, really looks around. “You punking me or something?” he asks, eyes narrowed.

“The gun,” says Jared. "Just check Dean’s gun!”

That one turns out to be loaded, too, which Jensen learns when he points it toward one of the cars in Bobby’s lot and fires. His arm flies up from the kickback, and he grabs his wrist. “Jesus!” he says. “What the hell?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you. It’s real.” Jared looks around in desperation. If the lack of the normal paraphernalia of the set doesn’t convince Jensen, what will? He looks up at the busted out window they just fell through. A debauched looking man with a shot-glass in his hand is standing there, watching them with amusement.

“Sebastian!” Jared calls out—then, confused, “I mean—Balthazar?”

“Well, well, well. What a pleasant surprise.”

“Sebastian!” Jensen looks up through the rain. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Isn’t that funny?” Balthazar drawls. “I always had you pegged as the smart one ‘in real life,’ as they say. I guess that would be asking for more than your fair share though—having the brains and the beauty. Although…” he flicks his eyes up and down Jared’s long, lean frame. “Padalecki’s fairly easy on the eyes as well. Seeing as how neither of you have the brains to come in from the rain, I suppose I’ll have to point out that the rain is just absolutely _ruining_ your hair and makeup. Come around to the kitchen, I’ll let you in.”

Inside, the house has a dreamlike quality to Jared. Many of the details are similar, but not quite the same as he’s used to on the set. Jensen does a double-take when he sees the massive reproduction of DaVinci’s _Last Supper_ that hangs on the fourth wall.

“See Jensen, we’re here. This is the _real_ Bobby’s house. This isn’t Sebastian, it’s the _real_ Balthazar.”

“Like hell, you say. Where’s Singer, he’s behind this, I just know it.” Jensen starts down the hallway, poking his head into doors. He comes back, his forehead crinkled, his eyes confused. “Stop fucking with me you two. What’s going on?”

Jared just shrugs and holds his hands out, palms up. “I don’t know what to tell you Jensen, except that I think it really happened.”

“It did,” Balthazar chimes in. “Now get over it. The only thing you have to—“ He’s interrupted when a portly man in a ragged baseball cap and hunting vest come bustling through the kitchen door both arms loaded down with grocery bags, a bottle of Jim Beam threatening to topple out of the top. He stands there for a second, looking from Jensen’s face to Jared’s as if he knows something’s wrong but can’t quite put his finger on it.

“Who the hell are you?” Jensen asks.

The man calmly sets the bags down and rescues the bottle of Beam. “What happened to growli-lock’s voice?” he asks Jared.

Jared doesn’t answer, but he tries to stage whisper out of the corner of his mouth to Jensen. “I think this is Bobby.”

“He doesn’t look like Bobby,” Jensen whispers back. The man is still staring at the two of them.

“Because our Bobby isn’t really Bobby, he just plays one on TV.”

“But Balthazar looks like our Balthazar—hey wait!” Jensen turns to Balthazar. “Is this what we look like here, or are the real Sam and Dean some weird dudes we don’t know?

“I’d say that the two of you are a sight bit prettier than Sam and Dean, but close enough that Bobby hasn’t shot you yet, so I’ll say you pass. Or they do. Whatever. How bothersome.”

“I have the feeling I’m going to need a drink for this one. Who’s with me?” Bobby asks, wiping a dirty shot glass off with the hem of his flannel shirt.

Jensen not-so-subtly eyes the grimy kitchen and keeps his mouth shut. Jared and Balthazar step forward.

“Okay,” Bobby says as he pours. “Start talking.”

++++++++

The script had said that Sam and Dean would be stuck in Vancouver for roughly two and a half days. Bobby says he’s busy on a salt and burn and grumbles about being too old for this shit. ”Sam and Dean are idjits, but at least they’re _my_ idjits. I need to be out working, not babysitting a couple of lost Hollywood lambs.”

“Hey, we can help,” Jared says, ignoring the epic eye roll he gets from Jensen. “So what if you think we’re just pretty boy actors, we can handle a shovel in a simple salt and burn, we’ve done it tons of times on set.”

Jensen holds up his hands. “Whoa, whoa whoa. Dude, I am sorry, but we are _not_ Sam and Dean, and I for one would like to survive until they get back.” Jensen plants himself firmly on the sofa, then jumps up again when a cloud of dust ploofs out from the cushions. He sneezes five times in a row while Jared waits impatiently to get a word in.

Finally, it looks like it’s over. Jensen looks around hopefully for a box of tissues. “See,” Jared says, “this is why you’re unhappy—“

“You think I’m unhappy because of my dust mite allergies?” Jensen sniffs.

“No, well yes, that’s one part of it, but no. I mean, you are unhappy because you always think in the negative. Your instant reaction to everything is to go through your mind and find all the reasons why something won’t work. Why can’t you try and think of ways that it _could_ work for once?”

Jensen is fishing around in his pocket, presumably for a tissue. “One, I am _not_ unhappy all the time, and two, I am _not_ negative all the time, I’m just realistic. Is it so wrong to be honest with myself? For example, right now, I am pretty damn sure that I am _not_ going to find any tissues in this place, never mind the lotion kind that I like, and no amount of sunshine out of my ass is going to change that fact.”

“Dude, you just used the words not, no, and never like five times in three sentences. How can you pretend even for a moment that you are not negative about freaking _everything_?”

Balthazar is watching this exchange like a tennis match and he holds his glass wordlessly out to Bobby to fill it. Bobby downs the rest of his drink. “Shut up and get in the car. You _do_ know how to drive, don’t you?”

This gives Jensen pause. “You mean I could _actually_ drive it?”

Jared pounces. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Who says you get to drive? You aren’t _actually_ Dean. You know I’m a better driver. If you put a scratch in that car, Dean’s going to kick your ass when he gets back.”

“I’m not even going to try and qualify how stupid your argument is.”

Bobby’s already in his truck, his head down on the steering wheel. Balthazar grins. “Ta ta, have fun, I’ll keep the home fires burning for you.”

++++++++

When they pull up to the cemetery (Jensen got to drive because unlike the real Dean, he actually has a knack for rock-paper-scissors), Jared pales visibly under the light spilling into the impala from the halogen streetlamps.

He climbs out of the car and winces when the door screeches and slams behind him. “Bobby,” he whispers. “This is a real cemetery.”

Bobby is gathering shovels and axes and gasoline from the back of the truck. “Where in la-la land did you think we were going to dig up bodies?”

“But- Sam and Dean, they’re always in like, old spooky cemeteries, like in Scooby-Doo. These are real people!” Jared says. “Look at this place, it’s floodlit for fuck’s sake. We can’t just—“

Jensen comes around the front of the Impala. “Having second thoughts? Couldn’t listen to me for once, could you? No, you had to be all—‘ _accentuate the positive_ ’ and ‘ _you never know what you can do when you put your mind to it_ ’. Shit. You got us into it, now sack-up and grab a shovel.”

Jared watches Jensen’s back following Bobby into the cemetery. One thing about Jensen is he might balk a little at first, but once he’s committed to something he finishes the job. More than once he’s pulled Jared through when one of his flights of fancy turned out to be more work than Jared anticipated. It was one thing he missed about their friendship. They really had been a good team.

He grabs a shovel and trots to catch up.

++++++++

You wouldn’t think cemetery dirt would be all that packed down. But it is. And rocks, where the fuck do rocks this big come from? This woman was buried late last year, according the headstone. Didn’t they use clean fill, free of boulders, to cover her up? It takes the three of them six hours to dig up the coffin, which ends up not being a coffin at all, but rather a sealed concrete vault, which requires an alarmingly loud blast of dynamite to crack, and then Bobby has to use an acetylene torch to cut through the bolts on the inner metal sarcophagus.

This is so different from what they had done on set that Jared begins to feel really nervous about how the contents might be different from what he has been imagining. Their cemetery scenes were usually dark and you never really got a good look at the skeletons, but he had always pictured bones as being sort of dry and chalky with maybe a few scraps of tattered funeral clothes keeping them together. The more he wonders and worries about what it might really be like in there, the more his stomach starts to feel a little uneasy. Then a lot uneasy.

When Bobby cuts through that first bolt, the smell that leaks out brings Jared to his knees. He vomits instantly, before he even knows that it’s going to happen.

“Jesus,” Jensen says, holding his sleeve over his nose. But he doesn’t vomit, and he doesn’t put down the light he’s holding for Bobby.

Jared resolves to get a grip on himself. He stands back up, ignoring the wobbling feeling in his knees. He pulls his t-shirt over his nose. It works somewhat, but then Bobby opens the sarcophagus. Jared hears a sloshing noise, and that’s it, it’s all over for him. As he’s scrambling out of the pit, he hears Jensen saying, “But why is it all _liquid_ like that?”

He cannot run fast enough. He runs and pukes, and runs and pukes some more until he reaches the gates. He stumbles towards the closest gatepost and clutches it, leaning his forehead against the cool, cool metal, and squeezes his eyes shut. He tries taking deep, cleansing breaths like Genevieve taught him during their couples yoga sessions, but the smell of the grave is clinging to him and the deep breaths only make it worse; he can almost taste that smell on his tongue. So he just holds on tight to the post and wills himself to keep his stomach _inside_ his body.

Several times he tries to make his way back, but he can only take a few shaky steps away from the gate before he hears that sloshing noise in his head and he reaches back for the solid reassurance of the pole. Shame burns behind his eyes, and a few stinging tears threaten, but he cannot, _cannot_ force himself to join Jensen and Bobby.

Jensen walks right past him without a word when the job is done. They drive back to Bobby’s in silence, the windows cracked to air out the smell that still clings to their clothes.

++++++++

“ _Goddamnedsonsofbitchesandbastards_! _What in the holy hell_?”

Bobby’s cussing comes drifting up the stairs far earlier than Jared is ready to wake up. Jared rubs his eyes blearily and sits up. In the twin bed opposite him, Jensen is rousing, too, and Jared looks quickly away. He isn’t sure he can face Jensen this morning.

But when Jensen sits up and a high pitched yelp of pain escapes his lips, Jared is at his side in an instant, his old instincts elbowing their way past the shame and resentment. “Are you okay, Jen?” he asks.

Jensen looks like shit. His eyes, hell, his whole face is red and swollen and puffy. He’s moving stiffly, and little involuntary whimpers push their way through his lips. He pushes Jared away with what feeble strength he has. “Maybe I’d only be hurting half this much if you hadn’t been such a pussy last night. Hell, I’d probably not be hurting at all if you hadn’t been all ‘let’s play Winchesters’ last night. What did you think? That this was one of your adventure-tourism vacations with Genevieve? Shit, Jared take a look around.”

Jared opens his mouth to reply, but he’s really got nothing to say for himself. He’s saved when Bobby’s cussing reaches a crescendo, threatening them both with dismemberment with his bare hands if they don’t get their asses down the stairs _yesterday_ Goddamnit!

The kitchen is full of ants. Actually, the whole first floor is full of ants. They make long black caravan lines to and from the salt lines Jensen had put down last night.

Jensen and Jared stand side by side, looking at the ants, then back at Bobby, then back at the ants. Bobby steps right up into their faces and raises a finger. He points at Jared, and then at Jensen, back and forth. “Which one of you did this?” he asks. “Which one of you sons of motherless bastards poured down _sugar_ lines over all the doors and windows? _WHICH ONE_?!?”

Jared and Jensen point at each other.

“No!” Jensen shouts, turning toward Jared. “You handed me the canister!”

“I didn’t know it wasn’t salt! I was dry heaving my guts out; I wasn’t about to go around taste testing. You should have checked!”

“Like hell! If I say we should lay down salt lines and you hand me—“

“Enough!” Bobby’s voice is tightly controlled, and there’s a vein pulsing angrily under the shadow of his hat brim. “Clean. This. Up.”

He heads toward a back room of the house. “I have to summon Balthazar to talk to him about something.” He stalks off muttering about Hollywood and useless pretty boys. He slams the door behind him, then pokes his head back out. “I didn’t even need you to lay down salt in the first place! This whole place is protected with _PERMANENT WARDS_. You IDIOTS!!”

That last “idiots” really hurts. It’s definitely worlds apart from the half-affectionate “idjits” that Bobby habitually bestows on Sam and Dean. The two of them stand there, arms hanging down at their sides, speechless.

When the doorframe stops reverberating, Jensen whispers, “Do you think he has a vacuum cleaner?”

Bobby does have a vacuum cleaner. Sort of. They find it in a closet under a yak pelt. After that, Jensen starts the hunt for Purell, leaving Jared to put back the roughly three-dozen Mason jars of scarab beetles that had been heaped on top of the yak pelt. He turns on the vacuum cleaner, and sparks leap from the wall socket, the vacuum gives one loud cough of dust and then promptly bursts into flames.

“SO HELP ME—“

“Umm— everything’s okay Bobby, no need to come out here!” Jared beats out the flames with the yak pelt.

++++++++

Bobby emerges two hours later to find Jared sweeping up the last of the sugar, and Jensen sitting at the kitchen table with a cold compress on his forehead.

“Bobby- I’m really sorr—“

Bobby holds up a hand. “I have work for you to do,” he says. “You two are obviously not safe here with no background, no training. You need some protection. Follow me.”

He starts to lead them down the hallway, but Jensen stops. “Bobby, we haven’t had breakfast or even a reasonable cup of coffee. Would you mind if we just ran out for Starbucks or something?”

You could strike baby woodland creatures dead in their tracks with the look that Bobby gives Jensen. “Sure, princess. I notice you haven’t had your manicure, massage or yoga session yet either. Perhaps you’d like to pencil me in tomorrow instead?”

Jensen ducks his head. “No Sir.”

A heavy stack of books awaits them in the small room where Bobby leads them. He hands Jensen a sheet of paper. “Memorize these incantations. Just in case you need any of them tonight.”

Both Jared and Jensen’s head snap around. “Tonight? What are we doing tonight?” Jared’s stomach lurches audibly when he thinks about the night before.

“I’ll tell you when you get done with the Latin lesson. I’m going out. If you manage not to burn down the house while I am gone I’ll bring back some food.”

It’s one thing Jared knows they can do—learn their lines. They sit down to the task and get to work.

++++++++

It could be Jared’s imagination, but Bobby almost looks disappointed when he comes back and finds they’ve mastered all the incantations he assigned them. He hands them each a white paper sack that smells like grease and salt and heaven. Jared unwraps a double cheeseburger and inhales it.

“So you two have some sort of script?” Bobby asks them. “Something that tells you what is happening?”

“Only what’s happening to Sam and Dean.” Jensen answers. “The script didn’t say anything about what happens to us while they’re in our places.”

“But we know that Sam and Dean are there for about two and a half days before Raphael activates the gate.” Jared contributes. He looks sadly at the empty burger wrapper.

“Two and a half days?” Bobby looks distinctly distressed. Jared is touched. He wouldn’t have guessed that ole’ Bobby would miss his boys that much. Bobby takes his hat off and fidgets with it, puts it back on.

Suddenly, he brightens. “Okay, so now that you are done with your incantations, we need to, uh… gather up some materials for the spell.”

“What spell?” Jensen eyes Bobby suspiciously.

Bobby clears his throat. “Um, well, Balthazar says the gate Raphael is only likely to let my boys come back here, she’s not going to bother worrying about taking care of you two. We need to work on the spell to get you two back to Vancouver, or you’re going to be stuck here.” Bobby doesn’t meet their eyes as he says this. But he adds, “And I’ll be damned if I am going to spend the rest of my days playing nursemaid to _two_ sets of you boys.”

++++++++

The first thing they need is a Buddhist prayer bowl. Lucky for them, the South Dakota Buddhist Vihara is just a short drive away in Sioux Falls. Unfortunately, it closes at sunset, and Bobby insists there’s no time to wait for it to open the next day. He sends Jared and Jensen off with a fake credit card and a quarter tank of gas and the door almost hits Jared on the ass on his way out.

Okay, so there’s no GPS in the Impala, and there’s no Clif either. How hard can it be to find a Buddhist temple? Plenty hard. It’s past midnight when they finally pull around the back of the building. Between them, they have a set of lock picks, two flashlights and a Snickers bar each.

They sit in the car, stalling, and for the first time it hits Jared that _here_ at least, Sam is a real person. Jared had accepted right away that this whole situation was real, but somehow hadn’t thought about _Sam_ being real. After all, here he is, still _playing_ Sam. Here, in the Impala, he can smell him. He can smell the iron tang of dried blood, the stale scent of fast food wrappers under the seats, the funk of the unlaundered clothes in the duffels in the back. _Mental note- see if we can do a load of laundry at Bobby’s tomorrow_.

But it’s more than that, and he sees it on Jensen’s face, too. Sam and Dean would know exactly what to do in this situation. Breaking into this building and taking what they need wouldn’t even rate as a minor challenge. They wouldn’t be sitting here, worrying about getting caught. They’d walk right in with the confidence born of knowing that they were doing what needed to be done for the greater good.

“We going to do this or what?” Jensen’s voice breaks into his thoughts.

“I guess we have to. We’re really fucked if we get stuck here.”

They get out of the car, and it’s so strange- a familiar action they’ve done so many times, combined with the sheer terror of it being real for the first time. Jared falls silent as they make their way to the back door. It’s dark, but he feels utterly exposed, like there might be a bank of security cameras tracking his every move. Should he tiptoe, or what? The thought forces a nervous huff of laughter out of his throat.

“Shush!” Jensen says.

“Don’t shush me!” And then, “Hey Jensen, do you think this is bad karma, breaking into a temple like this?”

Jensen waves his hand impatiently at him. “SHUSH!”

“You shush, you shusher. You’re making more noise shushing me than I am—“

Jensen stops. “Oh for the love of… can we just get this over with?”

They’re at the door. Jensen gives it an experimental tug. Locked of course. “Okay,” he whispers. “We can either try the lock pick or we can try to break a window. Your call.”

Jared pulls the lock pick out of his pocket and stares at it glumly. “Seriously, I would have no idea.”

“The window it is then,” Jensen says. At least that doesn’t take any talent. Jensen picks his way over the rock garden border that passes for landscaping, and Jared is about to follow, when the door opens.

“Can I help you?” asks a bespectacled man in a… toga? No, that can’t be right. Togas are for Greeks. Sari? Aren’t those for girls? Okay, a bespectacled man dressed in a white robe.

Jared freezes. But then he notices that the man hasn’t seen Jensen yet. Jared takes a step backward and makes a little show of jerking the Snickers bar out of his pocket and hiding it behind his back, like a little kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Umm, no… I mean, I was hoping the GIFT SHOP would still be open.” He takes a step backward.

The man narrows his eyes behind his glasses and takes another step away from the door. “What’s that behind your back?” he asks.

Jensen takes the hint. He creeps slowly and carefully behind the man and catches the door before it closes on its hydraulic arm.

“Show me what’s behind your back,” the man demands.

Jared takes another step backwards and starts to turn as if to run.

“Hey! Come back here!” the man yells, and then Jared does run. Okay, so a sort of pretend play run, like he sometimes does with his nephew when they are playing tag, but it’s dark enough so the man doesn’t seem to catch on that he’s not giving it his all. He takes the bait and gives chase.

Jared mentally calculates how fast he needs to run so that the man doesn’t catch him, but doesn’t give up either. He looks over his shoulder and is horrified to see that the man is right on his heels. Even in a dress. Toga. Robe. Whatever. They must have some sort of fitness program at the temple.

Jared puts on a burst of speed, but it’s too late. “AAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEE!” the man screams and jumps on Jared’s back. What the fuck? Aren’t Buddhists supposed to be all peaceful and shit? He keeps on running, the man clinging to his back, until he trips over a boulder and flies, splashing, down into the river.

The man wrestles with him in the water, and his white robe wraps around Jared’s arm so he can’t move it at all. The water is only a foot or two deep, but he keeps slipping and can’t seem to pull his head above the water. The monk hauls him out by the back of his collar.

“Now, what is in your hand?” he demands, holding his palm out. Jared makes a show of hanging his head, and puts the Snickers bar in the man’s hand.

“A Snickers bar? All that for a _Snickers bar_?!?”

Jared shrugs. “It has dairy in it, I didn’t want to offend you.”

“ _What_? You asshole, get the hell out of here.”

Behind the man’s back, Jensen is hotfooting it back to the Impala, a bulky object under his arm. Jared stands up. “You’re pretty… fit and… angry for a Buddhist, aren’t you?”

The monk starts walking with him back towards the car. Jensen’s spiky head ducks down below the window casing. Jared doesn’t think the monk saw it.

“I’m new here. My therapist says it will be good for my rage.”

“Dude, you’ve got a ways to go.”

++++++++

The next stop is the home of one Walter P. Sizer, former Catholic priest. They need his fingerprints. Well, not his specifically, but he’s the closest “defrocked priest” Bobby could find.

Fortunately, his address is not that far from the temple. _Un_ fortunately, they are still lost.

“It’s around here somewhere, just pull over and ask for directions,” Jensen insists, and not for the first time.

Jared doesn’t stop. What’s the point of driving around in _The_ Impala if they are going to act like a couple of tourists? _Girl_ tourists. Ask for directions? Please. And anyway, helllllo Mr. Right Street. “Look, here we are. What number are we looking for?”

Jensen turns on his flashlight and squints at Bobby’s chicken scratch. “Four-sixty-three,” he says.

They debate a minute about whether they should leave the impala right out front for a quick getaway or down the street so no one notices. Sam and Dean never had to think about this shit, they just _did_ it. They settle on leaving it half a block down, figuring it’s nearly three in the morning and no one is paying attention anyway.

The house is dark, not even a nightlight on inside. “Do you think he’s home?” Jensen whispers.

“Only one way to find out,” Jared says as they walk up the sidewalk. At the door, they pause. “I’m not sure if I want it to be locked or not.” Jared says.

“What do you mean?”

“If it’s locked we have to try and fuddle our way through another breaking and entering. If it’s not locked, he’s probably home.”

Jensen nods, his face thoughtful. “I hope it’s unlocked. I mean, even if he’s home, how long can it take us to find something with his fingerprints on it? We go in there, grab the remote control, and run out. He’ll probably never even wake up.”

Jared takes a deep breath and tries the door. It’s unlocked. He can’t swallow because his heart is suddenly beating so hard it takes up all the space in his chest and throat. Jensen is already through the door and waving him in impatiently.

Jared walks straight into a wall and nearly bites his tongue off trying not to yell. It’s clear after just a few moments of groping around that they are not going to find anything in the dark, so after a frantic whispered debate, they decide to turn on one light.

The forty-watt bulb in the entryway shines off the beads of sweat on Jensen’s forehead, and Jared feels the same sheen building up on his own skin. Walter P. Sizer, former Catholic priest, is probably feeling around under his pillow this very minute for his revolver. Even if he doesn’t have a gun, if they get caught it’s not like Jensen can charm his way out of prison like Dean would. Not to mention the fact that if they get thrown in the slammer overnight they don’t know anyone who would post bail, _and_ they’d miss the time for doing Bobby’s spell and be stuck here in Supernatural forever.

Did that mean that Sam and Dean would be stuck in Vancouver forever, too? Jared had read the script, and he is well aware of what it implies about Sam sleeping with Genevieve. He can’t blame her, she doesn’t _know_ she's cheating, but he can’t bear the thought of giving her up for good. Sam would probably leave her before too long, hit the road with Dean, and then poor Gen—

“Jared, you’re hyperventilating. Take some breaths and let’s get this over with.” Jensen wanders around in the dim light of the living room, opening up cabinets, looking for the TV remote.

“Okay, yeah, right.” Jared looks around. The house is all tidy and put away, there’s not much lying around—a pile of mail on the counter, a bowl of fruit on the table. “Try under the cushions,” he whispers and picks up a piece of mail.

Shit.

“Um… Jensen?”

“Found it!” Jensen forgets to whisper. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“But Jensen—“

“ _Now_!” Jensen is out the door and down the sidewalk; Jared follows, taking the mail with him.

Inside the car, Jensen is giddy. “We did it!”

Jared doesn’t join in. He’s still soggy from the dip in the river at the Vihara, and he has a terrible sinking feeling in his stomach. He flicks on his flashlight and shines it on the piece of mail he swiped from the house.

It doesn’t say “Walter P. Sizer” on the address label.

It says “David Connor”.

“Huh,” Jensen says when Jared shows it to him. “Maybe he’s gay, and this is his partner. He’s an _ex_ Catholic priest after all.”

“Let me see the address Bobby gave you.” They squint at it by the light of the flashlight.

“Huh,” Jensen says again.

”Yeah, _huh_ ,” Jared says, swiping the address out of Jensen’s hand and smacking him on the back of the head. “That says four-OH-three, not four-SIX-three. Dumbass.”

“My contacts are filthy! I haven’t washed them for two days! Look, no big deal. We just leave Mr. Connor’s mail and his remote control in his mailbox and then drive down the street and hit four-oh-three. It will be easier now that we’ve had practice. Piece of cake.”

“Har, har,” Jared says. “Fine, you put the stuff in the mailbox.”

Jared watches Jensen as he does so, and as Jensen is trotting back to the car Jared sees something else.

The light turns on in David Connor’s house.

“Fuck,” he whispers under his breath. He fishes around in his pocket for the keys. “Hurry up.” He frantically waves for Jensen to get in and close the door. And he fishes around in his pocket for his keys. And he fishes around in his _other_ pocket for the keys.

“What?” Jensen says when Jared drops his head onto the steering wheel.

When he met Genevieve, Jared taught her to always carry her keys with one key slotted between each finger of her fist when she was in a parking lot. That way, if anyone tried to attack her she could punch them and they would get jabbed by the keys. He had the keys in his fist when they went into the house. He definitely does not have them now.

They are still in the house.

Forty-five minutes later, Jensen has already walked down the road to Walter P. Sizer’s real house, stolen his real remote control walked back, and Jared is still waiting for the light to go out in David Connor’s house.

“I’m sorry,” Jared mutters. He waits for Jensen to start in on him. Jensen hands him a donut instead.

Strawberry frosted. His favorite. “Where’d you get this?”

“I passed a Dunkin Donuts and the back door was open. I figure why stop at three breaking and enterings in one night? I walked right up behind the counter, took the donuts, and the girls behind the counter just stared at me. They had no freaking clue what to do. Then I walked out. I really felt like Dean for the first time tonight.”

Jared stares at Jensen for a moment. Not only is Jensen not pissed off, but he’s actually starting to enjoy the ride. He laughs. Jensen looks at him and laughs, too. Suddenly, they’re both laughing so hard that they almost don’t notice that the light in David Connor’s house has gone out. It feels like it’s been a long, long time since they laughed together. Jared misses it. The way Jensen is laughing, he kind of thinks Jensen has missed it, too.

They wait another half hour, and Jared decides that accidentally breaking into the wrong house once on purpose is much easier than purposefully breaking into it a second time. This time, they _know_ Mr. Connor is home. And they _know_ that he’s already been put on guard. This time, he’s not going to have to feel around for his revolver, he’s going to have it ready to go.

Where the hell could he have left the keys? They’re not on the counter near the mail, or in the fruit bowl. They don’t dare turn on the light this time, so they feel around in the dark. Jensen is crawling around on the floor under the table and Jared is looking in the potted plants when they hear it. Footsteps on the stairs.

“We can’t go anywhere without the keys!” Jensen hisses. Jared panics and knocks over a plant.

“Who’s there?” a voice calls out.

“Hide!” Jensen says.

Jared ducks into the linen closet across from the kitchen. He can’t quite close the door on himself, what with the shelves and the vacuum cleaner and fire extinguisher and all, so he can see through the tiny crack when Mr. Connor turns on the light. He hears Jensen accidentally bump a chair in the kitchen the same time that Mr. Connor does, and he watches Mr. Connor’s back as he tiptoes into the kitchen, holding something darkly metallic out in front of him.

Looking back, Jared would have no idea where the inspiration came from, but at the moment he doesn’t think, he just acts. He snatches up the fire extinguisher and rips out the pin.

“YOU LEAVE MY FRIEND ALONE!!” he screams as he charges out of the closet, spraying white extinguisher foam everywhere. “RUN JENSEN, RUN!!” He can’t stop himself. Even after Mr. Connor turns around and shines his flashlight at him, Jared’s still screaming and spraying. “AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaa…..aaaa….aaa. Oh. That’s not a gun. That’s your flashlight.”

Mr. Connor stands there, dripping with foam. He takes off his glasses, wipes his face, and flicks the foam onto the carpet.

Jensen stands up from behind the table and flicks on the kitchen light. “Oh, man, we’re sorry.”

“What…the…fuck?” Mr. Connor finally manages to stutter. Jared reaches behind him and grabs a towel from the linen closet and hands it to him.

“I didn’t mean to—I thought you had a gun.”

“Who the hell are you and what are you doing here? And are these your damn keys?” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a set, no, _the_ set of keys.

“We, um, actually, we were in the wrong house earlier, we were looking for Father Sizer’s house.” Jared is so shocked by his luck that he can’t help but tell the truth.

This stops Mr. Connor mid-toweling. He stands there with his hands up in the air, the towel dangling onto his shoulder. “You mean _Mr_. Sizer. He lives up the street. What do you want with him?”

Jared’s got nothing.

“Confession!” Jensen says brightly. “Yes, we um, lost our virginity, and we wanted to confess. Immediately. You know how us Catholics are.”

Jared nods emphatically and crosses himself.

Mr. Connor looks dubious. “In the middle of the night?”

Jensen puts on his smile. _The_ smile. Male, female, gay, straight or Catholic, no person alive can resist its power. It’s Jensen’s personal secret weapon. His Blue Steel. Only it's a smile instead of some stupid emo cheek-sucking pout. When those white teeth show and those little crinkles appear at of the corner of Jensen's eyes, Satan himself would lay down his pitchfork.

“It’s a Catholic thing,” he says, “you wouldn’t understand.”

++++++++

“We suck at this,” Jared grumbles as they drive through the suburbs looking for their next, and blessedly last, stop. His hair is drying into stiff clumps where he got extinguisher foam in it, and his jeans are still damp and gritty from the river. Jensen, on the other hand, looks like he just stepped out of the make-up trailer. Dean’s clothes never looked this spotless, and Jared’s pretty sure that a green-tea latte from Starbucks never was “just the thing” that Dean needed to perk him up after a long night of hunting, but it sure works for Jensen.

“I don’t know. We’re two for two so far, that’s not bad for our first night out alone.”  
Jensen is tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to a Modest Mouse song on the radio. _Mental note. Make sure to tune into a different station before returning the impala to Dean._

“We haven’t had to face any monsters, demons, ghosts, or even angels. Neither of those guys tonight actually even fought us,” Jared says.

“That’s because we are us, not Sam and Dean. They’re like beacons to all that shit. We’re just two normal dudes. Probably the best people for the job, because people are going to _treat_ us like two normal dudes and not homicidal maniacs trying to save the world. Normal people don’t want to fight. Even when you show up at their house at three in the morning, spaz out, and attack them with their own fire extinguisher. People don’t want trouble.”

“Any ideas on this next one?” Jared asks. Bobby says they need the venom of an albino snake. He’s given them the address of a herpetologist from the University of Sioux Falls. It’s the weekend, so they are planning on stopping by at her personal address where, according to the internet, she houses an extensive personal collection of exotic snakes, including a rare albino pit viper.

“It’s ten o’clock in the morning, we can’t really break in. We need to think of something else.”

Jared looks at his hands. He’s got dirt under his fingernails from trying to help put the potting soil back into Mr. Connor’s rubber tree planter. Jensen’s manicure is immaculate. An idea slowly begins to form.

Bless Sam and Dean. One thing that is really so cool about being in their world is that they can see everything that is off-camera. Stuff the writers hand-waved and figured no one would wonder about. For example: where do Sam and Dean keep their suits? The answer: in the civilian part of the trunk. There are two garment bags in there with at least three suits each.

It’s also where Sam keeps his extra white t-shirts.

“Hey,” Jensen says when Jared stops the car to let him out a few blocks before the herpetologist’s house. His voice is tight, and Jared’s heart squeezes a little in his chest. He knows Jensen. He only sounds like that when he’s about to say something that’s really hard for him.

“I wish,” Jensen starts, pauses, starts again. “I wish you could be like this more often.” He bites his lip and fidgets with his hands in his lap, running his thumb compulsively back and forth over his wrist.

Jared crinkles his brow- makes as if to reply, halts, then, “Wha? Like what? Wha?”

Jensen turns, and hits Jared with his high beams. Those green-gold eyes looking right into his own elicit such a feeling of loss in Jared. He could swear in this moment that Jensen hasn’t met his eye for months, off-set that is, and he desperately misses their friendship.

Jensen gestures to their clothes. He’s dressed in one of Dean’s suits and looks like the cover of GQ. Which is to say, he looks a lot more like Jensen than he does Dean. Jared’s wearing Sam’s most faded pair of Levis, the ones with the holes in the knees, and a too-tight t-shirt. Approximately 2.4 less layers of clothing than Sam normally wears. “This,” Jensen says. “Your idea. It’s going to work perfectly, because you’re letting me be me, and you are being you, and you are seeing the difference for once.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

It’s not easy for Jensen to answer. He takes a deep breath, as if this were something he’d been carrying around a long time. “I miss hanging out with you, I really do. It’s just that sometimes you forget that I am _not_ you. It’s like you are just frothing over with Jaredness and you want me to catch the overflow. But I can’t. I’m never going to be your extreme naked bungee jumping partner for life. You’ve got Gen for that. I just wish that more often you could see me for me and be good with that.”

“Jeez, Jensen, is that what this has been all about? Why didn’t you just smack me with a rolled up newspaper? That’s what Genevieve does. How could you think that’s how I feel? The reason I love having you hang with me is _because_ you’re you, and _because_ you’re so different from me. I get to see things from a whole new perspective. If you weren’t diggin’ it, you should have just _told_ me.”

“It’s not so easy with you. You’re so—“ Jensen makes swirly explosive gestures with his hands.

“I’m sorry, man.”

“But this is good, this here.” Jensen points back and forth between the two of them. “This works.”

“You sure you’re okay with the whole snake thing?”

Jensen takes a deep breath. “I’m going to have to be.”

++++++++

Half an hour later, Jared pulls up in the Impala, alone. Jensen (hopefully) is already inside, pretending to be a writer for Ranger Rick Magazine.

He musses up his hair and shakes it out, then readjusts his crotch a little. He knows what he’s got in the storeroom, no harm in putting it out in the shop window if he wants to attract customers.

Jensen’s right, this will work, because for the first time since he’s been here he’s stopped trying so hard to be like Sam. He’s about to do something Sam would never do, and use a talent that Sam definitely does not possess.

He slams the car door a little harder than necessary, and it works; the living room curtains twitch aside, and an inquiring female face appears in the window. He walks up the path to the door and knocks.

“Can I help y—“ The woman—Sarah Foster, according to Bobby—nearly swallows her tongue when she sees Sam on the doorstep. She’s a pretty brunette, with only a few tentative skeins of silver shot through her lush mane of curls. Her blue eyes sparkle as she finishes her sentence. “Can I help you?”

Jensen’s not the only one who can turn it on by command. Jared grins a big, appreciative smile at Sarah, as if she’s the best thing he’s seen all day. “I hope so, ma’am,” he says. “I seem to be lost. I was hoping you could tell me where I can pick up County Highway 151 from here? I’m looking for the Gentle Spirit Horses Rescue and Sanctuary.” He maybe lets his Texas accent peek out a little. Just a little.

Sarah visibly takes a calming breath, and her cheeks flush. “It’s not too far from here,” she says, but she can’t meet his eyes. “Do you have a map? I’ll show you.”

Jared hears a faint tinkle of breaking glass and a muffled curse from inside the house, but Sarah doesn’t seem to notice. She’s too busy trying to be subtle as she looks him over. “Yes!” he says, perhaps a little too loudly. “Yes! A map—in the car.” He starts turn as if to go to the car and she follows, but then he turns around suddenly and she walks right into him.

He steadies her with his hands on her upper arms. “Oh, ma’am. I’m so sorry, ma’am.” Her long lashes flutter, and he can feel her pulse throbbing beneath her skin. He steps back suddenly, as if he just realized that he was holding her so close, and sticks out his hand. “I’m Jared,” he says, and when she takes his hand to shake it, he closes his other around hers as well. “Thanks so much for helping me out,” he says.

Over her shoulder, Jared sees Jensen running past the living room window, frantically beating at something on his sleeve. “I believe I have a map in the glove compartment,” Jared says, turning around. “I think I was just too caught up in admiring the view and I must have taken a wrong turn” He _knows_ she’s caught up in admiring “the view” because she doesn’t answer. He makes a point of letting his t-shirt pull up a little bit as he reaches over to the glove box through the driver’s side window. When he turns around, she’s blushing furiously.

“Uh—the Gentle Spirit Horses Sanctuary? It’s not far from here. Have you—have you been there before?” she asks.

This time, there’s a _loud_ crash and a scream from Jensen. Jared lowers his voice instead, husky, like Jensen does when he’s playing Dean. He steps just a fraction closer to Sarah. “No ma’am,” he says, “But I’m thinking about adopting one of their mares. I came up to see her for myself.”

“Oh, how kind of you,” says Sarah. “Those poor animals.”

“Yes, it’s a shame, but I do what I can. Now, where are we exactly?” Jared holds up the map so it blocks the view of the house and steps much, much closer to Sarah. She bites her lip.

“Here, you’re out crere near hooks. I mean, out here near Crooks. Just take 29 down to 90, and County 151 will just be a dew exits fown. A _few_ exits _down_.”

The living room curtains twitch, and Jensen gives him the thumbs up.

“Okay, 29 to 90, then a few exits. Thanks so much, ma’am. I’m sorry to interrupt your afternoon.”

“Oh, that’s all right, I wasn’t doing anything import— oh!” Sarah snaps out of her dreamlike state and looks back toward the house. Jared hears a sound suspiciously like a back door slamming.

“Thanks for helping me out anyway,” he says, and gives her elbow a friendly squeeze.

“Anytime,” she says wistfully.

++++++++

Jensen is drenched with sweat when Jared catches up with him a few blocks away. And he could be mistaken, but it _almost_ looks like Jensen’s hair is messed up. Just a little.

Jensen holds up a hand as Jared pulls alongside. “I _don’t_ want to talk about it,” he says.

“But you got it, right?”

Jensen holds up a vial with a rubber seal over the top. A few drops of milky fluid slosh around in the bottom.

“Nice!” Jared grins. “Guess what I found in Sam’s pocket?” He holds up a wadded up one-hundred dollar bill. They are so due for some cheeseburgers and beer.

++++++++

Bobby actually has the grace to try and hide his surprise when they plunk the three items down on his living room desk. Balthazar raises his eyebrows in a “not bad” smirk.

“Okay, so we should be all set, right?” Jensen asks. “We made it back in time, right?”

“Yeah, it looks like you did, kid,” Bobby says, and there’s a smile behind his words.

It takes a little convincing, but Balthazar agrees to do something about their friends that Virgil killed, and then it’s just a matter of rinsing the fingerprints into the bowl with the venom. At the appropriate time, Bobby will say some sort of incantation (he’s extremely vague about this part), and Balthazar will send them back. They all stand around, waiting awkwardly with nothing much to say until the appointed time.

“Ina gadda diveeda” Bobby begins. “Wingardium leviosa. Pedo mellon a minno”

And with that, they find themselves suddenly on the set of Supernatural, Episode 6.15, in blessed Vancouver.

++++++++

“Did that sound like a real spell to you?” Jensen asks.

“Did Balthazar grab your ass, too, or just mine?” Jared says.

They both see Robert Singer at the same time. “Oh, Auntie Em, there’s no place like home,” Jensen mutters under his breath.

“Robert!” Jared shouts. “We don’t quit! We really, really don’t quit!”

Robert just shakes his head and hands them each a revised script.

++++++++

_Dear Sam,_

_I found a hundred dollar bill in your pocket, here’s the change. We’re sorry; we were really hungry, and I figured you maxed out a few of my credit cards, so I suppose we are even._

_If you could, it would be really nice to send Sarah Foster (ask Bobby) a little something to make up for Jensen busting up some of her terrariums. She seemed like a really nice lady and we feel badly about the whole thing. She’ll probably never find that albino pit viper again. At least, we hope she does before it finds her._

_I don’t know what happens first—if you live your life, and our writers write about it, or if the writers write it and you live it, or what. But for what it’s worth, I’ll see what I can do about them writing you a happy ending._

_Sincerely,  
Jared Padalecki_


End file.
